The Super Eagles of Nigeria have confirmed that all outstanding bonuses and allowances owed by the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) have been fully settled.
Captain William Troost-Ekong announced the development in a post on his verified X handle on Wednesday, saying the team will now concentrate on Thursday’s crucial 2026 FIFA World Cup CAF qualifier against Gabon.
READ ALSO: World Cup Play-Off: Super Eagles Captain Ekong Confirms Training Boycott
“Issue RESOLVED. Outstanding financials cleared and on ground. Team is UNITED and focused as before on representing NIGERIA with our maximum for the games ahead!” Ekong’s post read.
But he did not specify whether the team had trained on Wednesday ahead of the all-important match on Thursday.
Issue RESOLVED. Outstanding financials cleared and on ground. Team is UNITED and focussed as before on representing NIGERIA with our maximum for the games ahead! @NGSuperEagles
Earlier on Tuesday, Ekong had revealed that the team boycotted training in protest over the unpaid allowances and bonuses.
He said that the players had not made any extra demands beyond the settlement of their entitlements.
The World Cup qualifying match against Gabon is scheduled for Thursday at 4 p.m. in Rabat, Morocco.
The winner will advance to the play-off final to face either Cameroon or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Coach Eric Chelle invited 24 players for the match, weeks after Nigeria made the play-offs with a 4-0 thumping of neighbours, the Benin Republic.
Players confirmed to be in camp in Morocco include Calvin Bassey, Alex Iwobi, Samuel Chukwueze, Tolu Arokodare, Olakunle Olusegun, Wilfred Ndidi, Moses Simon, William Troost-Ekong, Benjamin Fredericks, and Chidozie Awaziem.
Indigenous protesters stormed the UN’s COP30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil, clashing with security officers inside the venue. They were demanding stronger action to stop deforestation and mining in the Amazon rainforest.
England enlisted the help of British number one women’s tennis player Emma Raducanu to beat the All Blacks on Saturday.
The 2021 US Open champion talked to the players at their Surrey base on Tuesday about her preparation for high-profile matches and dealing with pressure, as well as watching training and taking part in a line-out drill.
Raducanu, currently ranked 29th in the world, blitzed her way to the Flushing Meadows title as an 18-year-old qualifier without dropping a set throughout her campaign.
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“There’s a reason why the girl who won the US Open [Raducanu] hasn’t done so well afterwards,” Jones said.
“What have you seen her on? The front page of Vogue, the front page of Harper’s Bazaar, whatever it is, wearing Christian Dior clothes.”
After his comments were attacked as “uninformed and sexist”, Jones said they were not intended as criticism of Raducanu and had been taken out of context.
He wrote to Raducanu to explain his words, but she did not take up an invite to watch England at Twickenham that autumn.
Steve Borthwick, Jones’ successor, said he was “grateful” and “privileged” to have the benefit of 22-year-old Raducanu’s experience.
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“To have elite sports people like Emma Raducanu visit, sharing with the players her experiences of preparation for sport and international competition at the very, very top level, it’s always a learning experience,” he told Rugby Union Weekly.
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‘The bone was sticking out of the skin’
Rex Features
Full-back Freddie Steward returns for England after a difficult afternoon in the 25-7 win over Australia on 1 November.
The 24-year-old uncharacteristically spilled several high balls early on, before being forced off in the closing stages with a dislocated finger.
“The bone was sticking out the top – out of the skin,” Steward said.
“I tried to get it back in. The physios tried and they couldn’t get it in, so I had to go down the tunnel.
“I told the lads I had injured my pinky finger and they all just laughed, but it [the injury] is a decent one.
“Australia had set up a box-kick, I was under it and I thought ‘What am I going to do? I’m going to have to catch it one-handed.’
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Steward said last year’s change to laws allowing chasers an unimpeded route into the aerial contest has made fielding such kicks significantly harder.
“Two weeks ago against Australia, for love or money, I could not bring a high ball down for the first half,” he said.
“I was getting really frustrated because that’s the foundation of my game.
“You have to give the Aussie boys credit – Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii is phenomenal in the air and Harry Potter came really hard at me.
“It has become so much harder. I’ve tried to catch over my head as much as I can. That’s something I’ve been trying to do a lot at Leicester this season, because it gives you extra height, an extra metre.
“It’s made my job more difficult, but I think the law change is no bad thing.
He said that the chance to puncture New Zealand’s aura and inflict a first home win over the All Blacks in 13 years on Saturday was a special opportunity.
Steward has played New Zealand twice in his 39 caps, featuring in the 25-25 draw at Twickenham in 2022 and a 24-17 defeat at Eden Park in 2024.
England’s most recent success over New Zealand came in Yokohama in the 2019 World Cup semi-final, but they have not beaten them at Allianz Stadium since a famous 38-21 win in 2012.
“You can sense there’s like that extra buzz and a bit of excitement and a bit of desperation.
“The All Blacks are iconic aren’t they? With the haka and all that happening, it’s always a cracker.
Kirsty Gallacher burst into tears in court while facing a driving ban. She was stripped of her licence, despite saying she had “no confidence” to use public transport and had to use her own car to ferry her family around. During a hearing, she was banned from driving for six months.
She explained that police believe an assault on her two weeks ago while she was in Central London was a “targeted attack.” Kirsty, 49, was caught speeding, doing 35mph in a 30 zone in Maiden’s Green, Berkshire, on April 1 this year, shortly after 8am.
During the emotional hearing at High Wycombe magistrates’ court, Kirsty, had attempted to apply for a driving ban exemption under mitigating circumstances. She already had nine points when she was caught in her 2020 plate Mercedes by a manned camera on a residential road. Ms Gallacher had previously pleaded guilty.
Kirsty has been banned from driving for six months
It came just weeks after she explained she had been assaulted
“I’m their sole carer and provider, financially,” she told the court of her children, aged 18 and 15, adding: “We live in the middle of the countryside. We’re in the middle of nowhere. I take my son to school every morning. I enjoy doing that. Public transport is not a feasible option.”
She went on to say a ban would not be fair on her younger child due to personal circumstances, adding that public transport wasn’t “feasible” where she and her family live. Gallacher, who explained she earned £150,000 per annum, said she had “no savings” and couldn’t afford to pay for a private driver or taxis.
She stated that her son may be forced to miss out on extracurricular activities, including golf and rugby, if she were banned from driving. “I have a brain tumour – an acoustic neuroma – it is benign, but it’s growing very fast,” she told the court, adding that it had been monitored for three years and she was now having radiotherapy treatment.
However, she explained that medical staff were unsure as to whether the treatment would work or if the tumour would shrink. Kirsty explained that she has to attend regular medical appointments and may have to undergo more radiotherapy and a possible operation.
She attempted to appeal due to mitgating circumstances ( PA)
While she says she’s a humble person and cannot ever use public transport, she is currently suffering from bad anxiety and understands that public transport isn’t always reliable. She says that at the moment, she is on steroids and suffers from dizziness and tinnitus.
Last month, the former Sky Sports News broadcaster explained she had been attacked while in London. “Last night I was physically assaulted in the streets of central London walking from work to my car, the walk I do most nights,” the 49-year-old said on social media. “The streets are well lit. There were people around.
“I was walking on the pavement, and I noticed this guy, all in black, covered up, actually, just walking at me. And I’m always vigilant. And he was just walking towards me, and so I moved out of the way, and then he brushed past me.
“He turned around, and he kicked me like he was kicking a football. He kicked me in the middle of a street at about seven o’clock last night, in front of people, and I turned around and he scarpered. I’m still shocked now, and I have the bruises to prove I’m afraid. I can’t quite believe what happened. I was not being provocative in any way. I was just going about my business as you do. I was just walking to my car to go back home to my family.”
“I luckily had some witnesses, some lovely girls saw it and came to my aid,” Gallacher added. “There was a security guard on a door nearby who was absolutely useless and didn’t do anything, which was hugely disappointing, and I just there, and I couldn’t actually believe that someone, a stranger, has just decided, for whatever reason, whether he’s a got a problem with women, whether he’s just an opportunist.
“He decided he did not like me, and he just thought, Now, give you the boot. And that is not okay. It’s not okay, it’s not okay.”
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Zikim crossing, the main entry point into the devastated northern Gaza Strip, has been reopened to allow the flow of humanitarian aid into the region, according to Israeli officials.
The announcement on Wednesday came two months after Israel shut the crossing, and followed repeated calls from United Nations aid agencies to allow aid to flow directly into the hard-hit northern part of Gaza.
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Under the ceasefire brokered by the United States, which took effect on October 10, aid deliveries were to be significantly ramped up, with at least 600 trucks a day supposed to enter the Strip.
But volumes have been much less than that, and the UN has warned that the hunger crisis in Gaza remains catastrophic, as aid convoys to the north, where famine was declared in August, face a slow and difficult route from the south.
“Today, the Zikim crossing has been opened for the entry of humanitarian aid trucks into the Gaza Strip,” COGAT, the Israeli Defence Ministry body that oversees civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, said on X.
COGAT said humanitarian aid entering through Zikim, supplied by the UN and other international organisations, would be subject to the usual Israeli security checks before entry and distributed through the UN.
A COGAT spokesperson told the AFP news agency that the crossing would remain open permanently.
A convoy of trucks transports aid for Palestinians in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, in October [File: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters]
Reopening ‘vital’
Reporting from Deir el-Balah, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said it was the first time Zikim crossing had been operational since the implementation of the ceasefire deal, after having been shut down by the Israeli military “under a security pretext”.
The reopening meant that three crossings into Gaza were now open, with Karem Abu Salem (known as Kerem Shalom in Israel) in the south and al-Karara (Kissufim) in central Gaza also operational.
In a recent report, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid had said the opening of direct crossings to the north was “vital to ensure that sufficient aid reaches people as soon as possible”.
Attacks, search for captives’ bodies continue
The reopening of Zikim crossing was welcome news in Gaza, where Palestinians endure dire humanitarian conditions more than a month after the ceasefire, as well as ongoing attacks from Israeli forces.
According to Al Jazeera teams on the ground, Israeli warplanes launched three air raids on the city of Beit Lahiya in the north of the Strip, while an area east of the Jabalia refugee camp, also in the north, was targeted with Israeli artillery shelling.
Al Jazeera teams also reported gunfire from Israeli positions stationed east of the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
The attacks came as members of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, and a Red Cross team entered an area within the so-called “yellow line”, demarcating territory under Israeli military control, in an effort to recover the bodies of captives.
Since the US-brokered ceasefire took effect in Gaza, Hamas freed all 20 living captives and returned the remains of 24 deceased, with four bodies yet to be returned to fulfil the first phase of the agreement.
Lead Israeli negotiator resigns ministerial post
As the search for the remaining bodies played out in Gaza, the head of the Israeli delegation in negotiations that produced the ceasefire and exchange deal said he was resigning from his ministerial post.
Ron Dermer, a close aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announced in a post on X that he was resigning as minister of strategic affairs, a post he had held since 2022.
“What the future holds for me, I do not know. But I do know this: No matter what I do, I will continue to do my part to help secure the Jewish future,” he said.
Dermer did not indicate whether he would continue as lead negotiator in the ongoing talks around the second phase of the Gaza deal.
Players, pundits and referees were asked what rules they’d change to improve football by BBC Sport.
Some of the ideas may sound unrealistic, but how football is played has always been shaped by the continually changing laws.
If the rule changes suggested were implemented, how would they reshape the tactical landscape?
How changing penalty rules would affect tactics
The first suggestion was around ensuring the punishment for fouls in the box matched the severity of the foul.
BBC Sport
Making the punishment more appropriately fit the crime, by giving free-kicks instead of penalties for these types of fouls in the box, would empower defenders to engage far more physically.
Centre-backs could step in and challenge without the constant fear of conceding a penalty for minimal contact. We’d likely see more front-footed and aggressive defending against forwards receiving the ball with their back to goal, which would make hold-up play more difficult. In wider areas, defenders would be able to physically usher players out of the box more often, too.
This more aggressive style of duelling would make attacking against low-blocks difficult. Attacking centrally and sustaining pressure for long periods of the game has the added benefit of winning penalties, which would cease to be the case. There may therefore be an increased focus on wide play and crosses instead.
To counteract aggressive defending in low blocks, attacking teams would likely focus on fast, direct attacks – not allowing opponents to get lots of players back into their own box.
Direct or indirect free-kicks instead of penalties?
With non-penalty fouls resulting in free-kicks, rulemakers would have to decide between direct and indirect free-kicks as the norm.
If free-kicks were direct, the distance defending players would have to be from the ball would likely result in these chances still being good goalscoring opportunities.
For strong ball-strikers, this rule change may not have the intended impact of making fouls in non-goalscoring areas considerably less likely to result in goals. You can imagine players like Dominik Szoboszlai or Bruno Fernandes would aim for the roof of the goal, scoring over players standing 10 yards back.
BBC Sport
After an initial decrease in goals, we would likely see a focus on indirect free-kick routines. The players who have scored from these scenarios in the past have done so using clever tactics to move the wall.
Alan Shearer scored from three indirect free-kicks in the Premier League and one for England. Team-mates would fake to shoot, which would invite onrushing pressure. Following the fake shot, the defending players would be asked to go back to their original position.
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Would a stop-clock stop time-wasting?
The introduction of a stop-clock to minimise time-wasting is another potential rule change often spoken about. The idea here is to play 60 minutes of actual football, stopping the clock when the ball isn’t in play.
In reality, teams would probably still opt to waste time. A large part of wasting time in football is to disrupt the flow of the game, making it difficult for the attacking team to gain momentum, rhythm and tire the opposition out.
Although time-wasting would still be attempted, longer matches would result in teams that dominate the ball having more chances to score.
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Teams that possess technically secure players could find ways of time-wasting in open play too, thus letting the clock run down. This could be in the form of using more players in the build-up and passing it around the back, or shielding the ball in wide areas.
This season the ball has been in play for an average of 55 minutes and four seconds per game in the Premier League. A stop-clock of 60 minutes would actually result in more in-play game time than current 90-minute matches.
NFL games are 60 minutes long but can take more than three hours to reach that 60-minute mark. Similarly, time-wasting tactics and injuries could prolong a 60-minute in-play football match into a game that lasts far longer.
In matches like these, the crowd’s intensity may dwindle – potentially minimising the home team’s advantage at points.
Rule changes have unpredictable consequences
Football tactics shape how the sport is played. Over time, these tactics can tilt the balance too far in one direction – after which rules are changed, aiming to bring balance back. Those rule changes then reshape football tactics and this cycle repeats.
